Emergency sirens will blanket Hudson

In keeping with Hudson County's role as what officials call "the first line of defense" for the New York City metropolitan area, the county is installing an alarm system to alert the public to major emergencies.

The Board of Chosen Freeholders awarded a $795,000 contract earlier this month to Kevco Electric Co., of Bloomfield, and Acoustic Technology Inc., of Boston, to install 31 sirens throughout the county.

The sirens will not be placed in all 12 Hudson municipalities but will be audible at 70 decibels in every residential area, said Gerry Drasheff, an emergency management planner for the county. The cost is being covered by a 2006 homeland security grant.

Kevco will begin installing the sirens, which can also broadcast spoken information through loudspeakers, next month, and will complete the work by January, Drasheff said.

However, Drasheff explained, the county has hit a roadblock in establishing a complementary piece of the alert system: An emergency broadcast radio station.

County officials obtained a license for an AM station from the Federal Communications Commission two years ago but the planned space on the dial was knocked out when a local commercial station went digital, he said.

Then, word came recently that officials in New York state near the Indian Point nuclear power plant have applied for a 10,000-watt station that would drown out any Hudson County broadcasts on a nearby frequency.

At the Aug. 10 freeholder caucus, several members of the county board said they were concerned that Hudson's lobbyists and federal legislators were not doing enough to protect the interests of the county, which they pointed out could provide an escape route to many New Yorkers in the aftermath of a disaster.

"Let's face it, we're in the middle of it all here" said Freeholder Maurice Fitzgibbons of Hoboken. "For Rockland County to have this radio station is ridiculous. Why don't we have that kind of clout?"

Fitzgibbons said Rockland County had applied for the station; the actual nuclear plant is in Buchanan, N.Y., in Westchester County, and is just across the Hudson River from Rockland.

The freeholders pointed out that Hudson County has its own environmentally sensitive assets to protect, such as the Kuehne Chemical plant in Kearny, which contains huge volumes of chlorine.

"This is a very serious and sensitive issue," said Freeholder Bill O'Dea of Jersey City. "I'm tired of being treated like the poor stepchild of New York on everything."